Typescript version, prepared c. 1943, of letters sent by Frances Shimer in Mount Carroll, Illinois to her elder sister Caroline Nash in upstate New York, from 1853 to 1856. The letters relate to the founding of the Mount Carroll Seminary by Shimer and her companion Cindarella Gregory.

Many of the handwritten originals were severely damaged in the Fire of 1906, and are now too fragile to be scanned.

Founded as a coeducational seminary in Mount Carroll, Illinois, Mrs. Shimer's school later became first a women's seminary and conservatory, then a women's prep school and junior college, before finally emerging from its chrysalis in 1950 to become Shimer College, a coeducational Great Books college now located in Chicago.